Trust—it goes without saying that populous cities like Cincinnati, where the death of Timothy Thomas incited public outrage in 2001, or in Ferguson, where teenager Michael Brown was shot in an altercation with an officer. Trust has been replaced with fear in these very troubled cities. People fear officers who take to the streets with little oversight. Driven by aggressive policies of leaders trying to deal with high crime rates, police fear the people they have sworn to protect. As Paul Butler of the New York Times put it, they have become “armed agents who feel unaccountable to citizens.” Left behind are citizens who would rather ignore the stench of marijuana on their own corners, and never dial 911 for fear of harassment. Left behind are a majority of good cops who are looked upon as the enemy in places where they are needed the most.
According to the United States Census Bureau, there are over 322 million people living in the United States and over seven billion in the world. This is remarkable but there is one issue, how can all of these people get along? Humans have been at war with each other for as far back as history can trace. This is evident in the current terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, CA and in Paris in which the Islamic extremist group, ISIS, has taken credit for. Today, the challenge for Americans is to quell threats like ISIS, while still being open and tolerant to those who hold different ideological, political, religious, and cultural beliefs. There is not a simple answer to this problem but according to multiple University professors, learning more about interdisciplinary studies which include ideological, political, religious, and cultural beliefs.
The controversy over America’s most popular film, American Sniper, is still lingering after the Oscars on Sunday night and the murder trial of Eddie Ray Routh—the alleged killer of Chris Kyle, the movie’s main character played by Bradley Cooper—all happening at the same time.
